From the Belly of the Beast

A letter to friends abroad

The propaganda machine is in high gear, at war against the truth. The bombardments are constant and calculated. This has been planned carefully over time.

The propaganda box sits in every home showing footage that it claims is of a distant war. We citizens, of course, have no way to independently verify that, but then most citizens are quite happy to accept it at face value.

We see peaceful streets by day in a lovely, prosperous and modern city. The night shots show explosions happening at a safe distance. What is the magical spot from which all of this is being observed?

Later we see pictures of damaged buildings, but they are all empty, as are the streets. There are no people involved, and no blood. It is the USA vs. architecture, as if the city of Bagdad itself is our enemy.

The numbers of casualties, all of them ours, all of them military, are so small that each one has an individual name. We see photos of them in dress uniform. The families state that they are proud. For each one of these there is the story from home: the heavily made-up wife who just gave birth to twins and is trying to smile for the camera, the child who has graduated from school, the community that has rallied to help re-paint a home or repair a fence.

More people are dying on the highways across the USA each day than in this war, according to our news. Of course, even more are dying around the world of AIDS or lung cancer, and we aren't seeing their pictures or helping their families. At least not according to the television news.

The programming is designed like a curriculum with problems and solutions. As we begin bombing the networks show a segment in which experts explain the difference between the previous Gulf War's bombs and those used today. Although we were assured during the previous war that our bombs were all accurately hitting their targets, word got out afterward that in fact the accuracy had been dismally low. Today's experts explain that the bombs being used today are far superior to those used previously, and that when we are told this time that they are hitting their targets it is true, because today's bombs really are accurate.

As we enter and capture the first impoverished, primitive village, a famous reporter is shown interviewing Iraqi women living in the USA who enthusiastically assure us that the Iraqi people will welcome the American liberators with open arms. The newspapers report Iraqis running into the streets shouting "Peace to all." No one suggests that the phrase might be a plea for mercy by an unarmed peasant facing a soldier wearing enough weaponry to raze the entire village in an eye blink.

Reporters riding with US troops are able to phone home over satellite connections and show us grainy pictures of heavily laden convoys in the Iraqi desert. Like the proverbial beasts of burden, the trucks are barely visible under their packages of goods, food and shelter. What they are bringing to the trade table is different from the silks and spices that once traveled these roads, but they are carrying luxury goods beyond the ken of many of Iraq's people: high tech sensor devices, protective clothing against all kinds of dangers, vital medical supplies and, perhaps even more important, enough food and water to feed an army. In a country that feeds itself only because of international aid -- aid that has been withdrawn as the US troops arrive -- the trucks are like self-contained units of American wealth motoring past.

I feel sullied watching any of this, or reading newspapers. It's an insult to be treated like a mindless human unit being prepared for the post-war political fall-out. I can't even think about the fact that many people in this country are believing every word of it. I can't let myself think that the propaganda war machine will win.